The idea of deliberately sinking a ship deep under the sea level is frightening enough as it is. These ten submarines, though, make other subs look ordinary.

10.) Japanese Kaiten Suicide Subs

As you know, no nation does suicide better than the Japanese. Therefore, when the Second World War reached the Pacific, they introduced devices such as Kamikaze planes, Shinyo suicide boats, Fukuryu human mines and the Kaiten human torpedoes.

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While these were very effective and Kaiten means "the turn toward heaven", the moment when the lid was welded above their heads must have been a bit depressing.

9.) The French Surcouf

The Surcouf was the largest submarine between 1934-43, and it was equipped with a twin 8" cannon and an aircraft hangar.

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They referred to it as an underwater cruiser at the time but what's more interesting is that it's still unclear who sank it and where, not to mention the wild stories about a fair bit of gold from the French Treasury that was supposedly in the Surcouf's cargo compartment.

The French submarine Surcouf. Does your submarine have twin 8" cannon in a turret? Does your…
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8.) The Navy's first

Civil War subs? Hell yeah! The Alligator was the Navy's first sub, built using a French design and propelled by hand. Launched on 1 May 1862, she foundered and sunk on 2 April 1863 after encountering some bad weather.

6.) The Turtle

Hailing from 1775 and the Revolutionary War, the Turtle was the world's first submersible with a documented record of use in combat. George Washington had some doubts about this propelled barrel but provided the funds anyway since he hated the British Navy so much.

5.) Rinspeed sQuba

4.) Reid RFS-1

The Russians were experimenting with submarines that could fly, but Donald Reid went further according to Wikipedia:

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In 1961 Donald Reid designed and built a single-seat craft (32.83 ft length) capable of flight and underwater movement. A 65 hp (48 kW) engine mounted on a pylon provided propulsion for flight; a 1 hp electric motor in the tail provided underwater propulsion. The pilot used an aqualung for breathing underwater. The first full-cycle flight [underwater at 6.5 feet (2 m) depth, airborne at 33 ft (10 m) altitude] was demonstrated on 9 June 1964.

3.) Bathyscaphe Trieste

More people have been on the moon than at the undersea depths reached by this sub. This Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe went between 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) and 10,994 metres (36,070 ft) deep in 1960, during which one of the outer Plexiglas window panes cracked, shaking the entire vessel.

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No big deal as the pair of Jacques Piccard and Don Wals spent twenty minutes at the bottom eating chocolate bars.

Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!